Note 8 — Chapter I

Before leaving the consideration of caste as found in Manu’s “Institutes,” it may be noted that we find side by side two discrepant views as to the connubium of the orders. According to the milder, and apparently the older view, caste is determined by descent from the father, and a Dvija or twice-born man may take a wife from among Brâhmans, Kshatriyas or Vaisyas. With a Sûdra woman alone he could not intermarry. By the other view a man was advised to marry a virgin of his own caste as his first wife, and after that he may proceed according to the rank of the castes. There is some reason to believe that under this rule he might take even a Sûdra woman as a second wife.8 This, it is needless to say, represents a very different state of things from that which prevails under the modern rigid law of caste endogamy.